#SolvingTogether Launch session ideas

On the 4th April 13:00-14:00 Tim Ferris, Director of Transformation at NHS England and NHS Improvement. During the session the audience were split into breakout groups and focused on a challenge. Each challenge has two rooms focusing on it. 

Here are some of the ideas that the audience came up with during the session. 

Room 1:

• Make sure patient wants the procedure they’re on the list for - patient centred care
• Use theatres appropriately - low complexity cases could be seen in outpatients
• Things like injections could be done in the community with right skills mix and workforce
• Advice and guidance - make sure people have all the info they need
• Look at wider determinants of health - stop people getting poorly in first place where possible
• Look at social/mental impact of waiting - loneliness, added complexities eg weight gain from being inactive

Room 1 - Top 3 ideas: 

1) Mental health element and impact on patients while waiting - eg loneliness if person is unable to do normal activities and potential for adding further complications

2) Advice and guidance

3) Right procedure, right place, right resources - enabled by and supported by technology

Room 2: 

• Front-end pathway
• Primary prevention and public health
• Supporting people to stay healthy and focus on interventions and work early on in the pathway - pushing resource into front end services
• Supporting improving interventions
• Digital
• Improving links with social care and supporting integration
• ‘Escape pain’ as an example
• Alternatives to surgery
• Self help
• Elective - triage/waiting lists
• Care navigation and triaging
• Waiting well

Room 2 top 3 ideas: 

1) Signposting and expectation management - awareness of other options to surgery and working with the patient to understand what the best intervention would be for them personally

2) Using digital enablers to support care and self-management

3) Focusing not just on ill health but on health more widely, looking at longer term prevention and public health efforts